On November 1, 1907, an urgent call reached the New Orleans police from the swamp and lagoon area south of the city. The people who had settled there, mostly primitive but kind-hearted descendants of Lafitte's men, were at the mercy of terror from an unknown thing that had approached them unseen in the night. It was apparently voodoo, but the most terrifying kind of voodoo they had ever encountered; moreover, some women and children had disappeared from the moment the dreadful drums started their endless beat somewhere deep within the haunted black forest, where no resident ever dared to enter. Delirious screams and eerie howls were heard, blood-curdling chants, and devilish flames danced; until, added the frightened messenger, they could no longer bear it.